A report released Thursday from
World Animal Protection highlights that every year 640,000 metric tons of fishing nets are lost or discarded in our oceans each year, trapping and killing countless marine mammals, including endangered whales, seals and turtles. Shallow coral reef habitats also suffer further degradation from the gear, which can take up to 600 years to decompose.

"Worryingly, the level of ghost gear has increased in recent years and it is likely to grow further as fishing efforts intensify all over the world," said Deputy Prime Minister Didier Reynders of Belgium, a partner of World Animal Protection's
Global Ghost Gear Initiative that's aiming for ghost-gear-free seas.

Unfortunately, World Animal Protection's report, Ghosts beneath the waves, finds that most of the seafood industry's biggest companies are not doing enough to address deadly fishing gear.

The report ranked 15 seafood giants and their approaches to fishing equipment on a 1 to 5 scale, but found that none of the companies ranked in the top two categories of "setting best practice" or have responsible handling of their fishing gear as "integral to business strategy."

The results also showed that 80 percent of the assessed companies do not have a clear position on ghost fishing gear nor do they even publicly acknowledge the issue.

World Animal Protection

However, the report exemplified Seattle-based Trident Seafoods for actively working to collect and transport derelict fishing nets from Dutch Harbor, Alaska. These end-of-life fishing nets are removed, bundled and transported to Denmark for recycling by GGGI participant Plastix.

Tuna suppliers Tri Marine is also collaborating with the Global Ghost Gear Initiative to trial and implement best practices for the use of their biodegradable Fish Aggregating Devices.

The report concludes that companies who join the Global Ghost Gear Initiative perform better at addressing ghost gear in their supply chains and contribute to the delivery of the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals.

Sixteen-year-old climate action leader Greta Thunberg stood alongside European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker Thursday in Brussels as he indicated—after weeks of climate strikes around the world inspired by the Swedish teenager—that the European Union has heard the demands of young people and pledged more than $1 trillion over the next seven years to address the crisis of a rapidly heating planet.

In the financial period beginning in 2021, Juncker said, the EU will devote a quarter of its budget to solving the crisis.

A new study reveals the health risks posed by the making, use and disposal of plastics. Jeffrey Phelps / Getty Images

With eight million metric tons of plastic entering the world's oceans every year, there is growing concern about the proliferation of plastics in the environment. Despite this, surprisingly little is known about the full impact of plastic pollution on human health.

But a first-of-its-kind study released Tuesday sets out to change that. The study, Plastic & Health: The Hidden Costs of a Plastic Planet, is especially groundbreaking because it looks at the health impacts of every stage in the life cycle of plastics, from the extraction of the fossil fuels that make them to their permanence in the environment. While previous studies have focused on particular products, manufacturing processes or moments in the creation and use of plastics, this study shows that plastics pose serious health risks at every stage in their production, use and disposal.